While I am on the topic of bank lending, I would like to add a few words about commercial real estate (CRE).
Demand for commercial property has dropped as the economy has weakened, leading to significant declines in property values, increased vacancy rates, and falling rents.
These poor fundamentals have caused a sharp deterioration in the credit […]

Today was Fed Meeting Day. In a piece entitled Commercial Real Estate Continues to Worry the Fed …. we see that apparently there is more evidence that commercial real estate continues to worry the Fed: The minutes from the September meeting of Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee.
The underlying theme of the Fed’s view of the real-estate market comes […]

WASHINGTON 2:30PM EST — Huge credit and real estate news …… With benchmark rates virtually at zero, the Federal Reserve has turned its focus to pumping money into stressed credit markets in the hope of restarting lending and restoring growth — a policy Fed chief Ben Bernanke has dubbed “credit easing.

“In a very rare move — […]

Read Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s statement, unedited …addressing the root cause of the credit crisis.

September 19, 2008: 10:24 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — Statement by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson.
Last night, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, SEC Chairman Chris Cox and I had a lengthy and productive working session with Congressional leaders. We began a substantive discussion on […]